The Shadow
by krazykatie
Summary: A little one shot about the four page interim between the end of chapter three of New Moon and the beginning of chapter four. In other words, what Bella was like while Edward was gone before she 'woke up'.


**I got this idea from the same friend that I've gotten all my Twilight fanfic ideas from. She finally got a penname, dRuMMerk3lli. Her and another classmate of ours did their version of this idea, so I figured I'd give it a shot.**

**Welcome to Bella's pain.**

* * *

I pulled the covers off of me and took something out of my closet, dressed and wandered downstairs. I told myself to get to the kitchen so I could make the routine breakfast for Charlie.

I found myself taking out a whisk and some eggs, then beating them in a small bowl. I didn't quite remember getting the eggs themselves out, or cracking them open. This was all part of the routine.

Everything was routine. That was how I survived.

Wake up, make breakfast, leave quickly to avoid Charlie and his one-sided conversations, go to school, arrive early, study during the extra time if there was extra time, go to class, go straight to the Newton's hunting store to work, head home, avoid Charlie, do homework, study more, go to sleep and wake up to start all over again.

The routine was a dull one. But it was an essential one.

The eggs were over-beaten, so I stopped and poured them into the pan I couldn't remember having heated up.

I needed this routine. I needed it because it provided distraction. Distraction from—

A ripping feeling tore at my stomach, the latent hole widening, engulfing me. I turned away from the stove, bending over, clutching my stomach to stop the horrible ache. A whimper escaped my lips as his perfect, flawless, gorgeous face appeared for the briefest second in my mind.

Too much. It was too much. I'd dared to think of his face, and this was the price.

I shoved away the sight of his face. There were no flaws, no defects, in his face as there were with the average person. He was beautiful in every way thinkable. I couldn't bear to see him.

I found myself a curled ball below the stove on which the eggs were burning. I concentrated on the smell of the eggs. _Don't think of him,_ I coldly reminded myself. _All you do is hurt yourself. Think of the eggs. Burning eggs. Eggs you should be making for Charlie. Think of Charlie. He needs his breakfast. Make his breakfast_.

I slowly uncurled myself and got up off the floor.

There was a voice from the doorway as I stood up, now taking a spatula to the pan. I concentrated harder on the voice. It was tired, and a little grating from age. Charlie's. Oh right, of course. Who else would it be?

"Hey, Bella, are you okay?" he asked.

The next thing I knew, I was holding a plate of food for Charlie, not remembering how the finished eggs got out of the pan. I imagined they got there somewhere along the way. I silently put the food on the table, then walked over to where I saw my backpack, also having magically moved itself without my permission.

"Good _morning_," Charlie said loudly and slowly as if talking to someone with a mental disability.

"Morning," I muttered.

"How did you sleep?" he asked.

I nodded. I wasn't listening to him. Sure, I heard him, but I let my body do the moving. I hoped he didn't realize I wasn't actually paying attention to him.

I picked up my backpack and walked through the doorframe, giving him a faint farewell with my hand.

"Bye, Bella," he replied.

I left.

-

Days dragged that way. I did whatever it took not to think of Ed—him. But when I failed, I paid the price, and dearly. I was a hollow shell, with no feelings, no real gesture of humanity, but just a shadow of what he and I had once been.

Yes, he and I, not just I.

Because I was not a whole being anymore. I was part of a whole. And he was the other part.

It hurt enough that he was gone. Forever. But what hurt the most was that I was the taped up, broken pieces of a tragedy, and he was elsewhere, perfectly whole and unscathed by it all. He hadn't been hurt. He was a whole all by himself.

I needed him.

But he didn't need me.

And that was the pain.


End file.
